Before the Storm
by ListeningtoGrace
Summary: Sequel to the Calm Sirius is out of Azkaban, and Remus is teaching at Hogwarts. How does their son fit into the mix Rating for safety and one bad word (repeated twice) Minor Sirius/Remus


_Disclaimer: I don't not own Harry Potter nor any of its character's_

In a high tower sat a young boy observing the reflection of the full moon on the dark surface of a lake. In his hands he clutched a slender wand and a red and gold silk tie. In the distance a lone tree danced; like the tie it was a reminder of a different time and the mischievousness of four boys. He wondered if those boys had ever sat where he sat and prayed to the moon; he wondered if the men who grew from those boys were looking up at the moon, so big in the sky, and asking impossible things of it just as he did now.

"What are you doing up here? You should be in bed." The voice behind him was soft in a way few knew it was capable of; the hand on his shoulder the same.

"I'm thinking Papa. What if I'm not a Gryffindor? Do you think he'd, they'd, still be proud of me? What if tonight is the last night I can ever come up here?"

The man sighed. "Cay if you are meant to be in Gryffindor you will be, but don't force yourself on a house because it's what you think your parents would have wanted. If I knew them half as well as I like to think I did, they would just want you to be yourself, but if I'm wrong, _I_ will be proud of you no matter what house you call home." A pale hand reached out to tousle cinnamon colored hair, "There are other places you can be close to them besides this tower. Now come on off to bed. Tomorrow is a big day."

"Yes Papa."

The next evening found the boy in a crowded hall. He was surrounded on all sides by nervous looking children with Hogwarts insignias on their ties. The boy standing next to him was trying valiantly to look untouchable but he was betrayed by the faint tinge of green on his cheeks; the boy hoped he was doing a better job.

"Caelum Snape." Never in his life had professor McGonagall's voice made him tremble so.

The hat she placed on his head was warmer than he expected, surprisingly comforting something capable of ruining every childhood fantasy he'd ever had. "Slytherin."

With tears and his eyes and a smirk on his face Caelum Orion James Snape, using a determined stride the way on a Snape can, made his way towards the cheering sea of black and green. In his eleven year old mind the world had just ended; he had yet to realize that when something ended something new began.

Far away, in a cell on an island a black dog whined; a desperate plea for his mate, and his pup, and his godson. And further away still, lying broken on the floor, a werewolf whined back.

On a broken porch step, in the hot August night, under the light of the full moon sat a wolf. The wolf was restless; this broken house on Spinner's end was not home. Home was stone walls and hidden passages, dungeons and glass rooms beneath a lake, viscous trees and run down shacks. Spinner's end was not home, the wolf knew this, yet still he sat because the moon told him to. The moon told the wolf to bid his time, for the moon knew things; the moon knew that on that very night an alleged mass murder had slipped from his cell. The moon knew that everything the wolf had known for the last twelve years was about to change.

Breakfast at Spinner's end was typically a calm affair. The routine had been perfected and re-perfected over the last twelve years. The most exciting thing to ever occur was the occasional glass of spilled orange juice, or the rare appearance of a hangover potion, if the previous night had been spent at the Malfoy Manor and the Fire Whiskey overindulged on.

This morning was anything but clam. It started the way mornings tend to, with coffee and orange and the disgruntled complaints of an almost thirteen year old over his burnt toast, but it did not stay that way. On this morning's paper was a picture of a mad man. Now the appearance of a mad man on the morning paper tends to cause at least mild concern in most households, but in this household it wasn't the fact that there was a mad man on the loose that caused a frenzy it was the identity of this particular mad man that ignited the chaos.

To most Sirius Black was a menace; someone to be stooped by whatever means necessary. To the inhabitants of Spinner's End, however, he was a father, a friend, and cause for great emotional upheaval.

"What are we supposed to do Papa?" Caelum asked once the initial shock had worn off. He sat in the lap of the man who raised him, something he had not done for a very long time. "Are we supposed to look for him? Let him come to us? What?"

Severus looked down into big grey eyes and wished he had the answers. Caelum had always been an inquisitive child but this was one instance, the first of many he presumed, where he was no more capable to answer than his son was. "I don't know. Keep on living I guess. Nobody knows what we know Cay and if we suddenly drop of the face of the Earth, especially this close to the start of the year, people will start to wonder. Perhaps the best way to protect him is to not."

The two didn't say anything after that. They just sat together, each praying separately that just because Sirius was free Severus would remain Cay's Papa, just as he'd done for the last twelve years.

Usually the Caelum loved the Back to School feast. It meant he was home again, but this year felt different. The closer he got to Hogwarts the more he felt the sense of dread that had been ever present since the news of his father's escape. The presence of the Dementors and the new Defence teacher weren't helping either. Maybe Papa would let him help brew a batch of Wolfsbane. He had a feeling they were going to need it. Happy Birthday to me, he thought, this year is going to suck.

"Mr. Snape a word?" Professor Lupin's voice was sharp as Caelum had ever heard it. He suppressed a shudder; not only at the tone, but at the fact the man had referred to him as _Mr. Snape._ It sounded wrong somehow.

"Yes Professor?" Caelum's voice was cold and steady; a flawless mask that never wavered or betrayed his true feelings. He hated the fact he had to use it now, with Lupin. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around the man, sit and here stories about the misadventures of the Marauder's that weren't tainted with an outsider's bias. This man was his father yet Caelum could give him little more than the cold regard he afforded all strangers. "Is there a problem?"

Lupin gave a faint sigh before he started speaking. His exasperation evident and so much like Severus' Cay had to repress a giggle. For two men who swore they hated each other they truly were very similar. "I was wondering if you slept alright last night Mr. Snape. If there was an actual reason you felt the need to sleep through my class, or if you just couldn't be bothered to pay attention."

In truth Caelum had not slept alright the previous night. He'd been busy sneaking food to fugitives, brewing illegal potions, and doing his best to break into Gryffindor tower that he had not slept at all. He could say none of this to the professor however and gave a weak excuse in true Slytherin fashion, "I slept like a baby last night Sir, thank you for asking. The truth is I found you lesson so entirely useless that I figured sleeping through it would be the best use of my time. Now if you'll excuse me I'm late for Transfiguration." And with that he strode off, pretending not to here as Lupin informed him of the detention he'd be serving the following afternoon.

Lupin was seething, so caught up in his own frustrations that he missed the exhaustion in the boy's eyes and the tremor of his shoulders. Perhaps if the man had truly looked at the boy, instead of the child of a man he'd once despised, he would have known what the look in those eerily familiar grey eyes meant. Perhaps he would have been able to coax the truth out of lips so eager to tell it. Perhaps he would have realized there was more to this boy than he'd thought there to be, but alas this had not come to pass. The boy was gone, so close yet further than ever. Inside the man a wolf howled as it watched their pup, the last connection to their mate, walk away.

Caelum did not go to transfiguration, nor did he attend any other class that day. Instead he slipped away, beneath the branches of a tree, through a well-worn tunnel, and into a shabby shack. He curled onto the bed in the corner and succumbed to his heavy eye lids. Dead to the world he did not stir as a mangy dog crept out of the shadows and onto the bed beside him.

The dog did not know who this boy was; just that he always brought food. The dog did not realize the boy he slept next to was his son; he just knew that this boy was safe, that this boy could be trusted.

Though it was still early in the year Caelum had already decided that the worst class on his timetable was Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was strange to think that not long ago he'd been twelve, sitting in the shabby yellow kitchen at Spinner's End eating burnt toast and dreaming about this class, dreaming about meeting his father. Now he was thirteen, the shabby yellow kitchen was miles away, the toast here was always a perfect golden brown, this class was horrible, and his father was an asshole. And right now, that asshole he wanted to call dad, was making his face his biggest fear in front of his peers.

He'd read about boggarts. He knew how they worked. This wasn't even the first one he'd came across, but that didn't mean he was prepared for what he knew he'd see. Their backs were to him as always, one tall and slender with cinnamon hair, the other shorter and broader with dark curls. They were walking away from him, not sparing him a backwards glance. They were leaving. "Riddikulus" Caelum heard his voice waver, felt the tears on his cheeks, but it didn't matter because they were facing him now. Two figures, one fair, one dark, with matching devilish grins wrestling over a Quaffle. Their green ties stood out stark angst their robes. They were Blaise and Draco and they'd never leave him. Even now they stood behind him pulling his hair and chattering in his ear. Slytherin was family and loyalty while Gryffindor was pretense and loneliness. For the first time in his life Caelum didn't think of Gryffindor with longing. He was home; Slytherin was home.

Across the room Professor Lupin watched the boy. He had been taken aback by Caelum's boggart. For one moment, one painful moment, he'd been reminded of Sirius. The fear of being left behind, of not being wanted, had been ever present in his husband. His psyche damaged by psychotic parents. It was an image he couldn't reconcile with the boy standing before him. Severus Snape, for all his faults, was a good father. The boy had to know Snape would never leave him and yet those eyes, those eerily familiar eyes, had spoken of pain and desperation. Lupin wondered and the wolf within him howled.

The boy walked through the woods with sure footed ease. The professor that trailed him had no doubt the boy knew where he was going, though he did wish he'd been afforded the same gratitude. The Dementor was unexpected, the air grew cold but still the boy seemed unfazed, but more unexpected still was when the boy drew his wand. The decisive "Expecto Patronum" casued Lupin to freeze, hand on his wand, the silvery dog that burst from the wand tip however, caused him to gasp. He knew that dog the same way he knew those grey eyes. Those grey eyes were fixed on him now. "You didn't expect Papa to let me wander around with Dementors unprepared did you?" The boy frowned then. "Do you suppose we could skip the whole telling my father and Dumbledore about this part? I know I'm not supposed to, you know you can't stop me, any way we can just leave it at that?"

"Only if you tell me where you're going and allow me to accompany you."

The boy laughed at that. "I get it now, the whole marauder thing. I always assumed you were the male, werewolf version of Granger, snotty and superior, but you are just a conniving as the other three weren't you?" He paused for a second before continuing, "Did you guys really hang Papa upside down from a tree?"

"I'm pretty sure he had it coming." Both of them smiled the same toothy smile before continuing deeper into the trees.

The Shrieking Shack was oddly quiet in a way Caelum hadn't seen it since Sirius had broken out of prison. The looming silence seemed consuming until it was shattered but the terrified screams of one Ronald Weasley being dragged down a tunnel to face the execution of his rat. Caelum thanked the moon Gryffindors were so loud as he was afforded time to change into a large grey wolf and slip into the shadows.

By the time Padfoot had Weasley drug into the center of the shack Caelum was nowhere to be seen, though if one listened closely, beneath the panicked sounds the red head was making, a soft growl sounded as Cay caught sight of the rat that had ruined him family.

The next minutes were a blur, lots of noise and movement, too much for his heightened senses to handle. It wasn't until Snape was unconscious and Pettigrew was pleading with Lupin to let him free that Caelum finally emerged from the shadows.

Potter was the first to notice him, but Caelum had little attention to spare on his God –Brother's, he was much too busy sinking sharp teeth into Pettigrew's calf, the wound on his leg a matching set to that on his former owner. Once he was satisfied that Pettigrew would be going nowhere fast, Caelum moved over to Snape's prone form and licked a stripe up his face, a smear of blood left by his eyebrow from what of it remained in Cay's mouth.

Not daring to change Cay followed the party out of the Shrieking Shack back onto Hogwarts grounds. It wasn't until they were back outside that Caelum remembered his original purpose for being in the Shack. The full moon rose high above them. His parent's seemed to realize it at the same time he did. The moon's effects were already wracking through Lupin causing him to shake and convulse.

Somehow, though if asked for a chronologic sequence of event's Cay would be unable to provide one, Snape, Pettigrew, and the Gryffindors made it back to the castle, with Pettigrew properly detained, and Sirius and Caelum managed to wrangle Lupin away from the castle.

The next morning found Sirius, Remus, and Caelum back in the Shrieking Shack. Sirius and Remus sat together talking quietly while Cay slept between them.

"Why did you convince James and Lily to switch secret keepers Sirius?" Remus' eyes were trained on the sleeping wolf between them.

"The baby. He made me vulnerable. I couldn't risk him getting hurt no more than I could risk James, Lily, and Harry. As important as they were…he…" Sirius' voice petered out and not for the first time he wondered where Caelum was now. Absently he ran a hand down the wolf's spine.

"What baby Sirius?" Remus sounded broken and unsure.

"Our son. I-I was pregnant when you left. I didn't know how to tell you." There were tears in Sirius' eyes now. One of them fell into the soft fur behind Cay's ear. He twitched.

Both men sat staring at one another for some time before one of them moved. Then they were holding each other, crying and kissing.

"Where's our son now Sirius?"

Sirius started but was interrupted. "I'm right here. Now if neither if you mind I vote we head back up to the castle and scrounge up some food. Oh and since you guys are technically my parents think you can convince Papa to not ground me until I die?"

Sirius lunged then, pulling his son into a hug that left oxygen in short supply but Cay didn't mind.

Remus laughed at the two of them before wrapping his arms hesitantly around their shoulders. "Of course it'd be you, most annoying student in all of Hogwarts, and a Slytherin to boot." He felt Caelum freeze then, "Not that I mind you are a Slytherin just…"

Caelum lay in bed far away from Spinner's End. "Can I come in?"

Severus Snape was just the same as he'd always been, Cay was thankful for that. "Of course Papa."

The door creaked and in his hands Snape held present. It was the thirty first of August and tomorrow Caelum would be fourteen. "I know a lot has changed this year but I figured this didn't have to. Happy almost Birthday."

Caelum nodded before reaching for his gift eagerly, the way he'd always done. Tomorrow he'd wake up early, get showered with presents from parents trying to make up for fourteen years, and fight Harry for the last slice of bacon. Tomorrow would start a new tradition with a new family but tonight he was content to have this old tradition. He knew tomorrow he'd have to explain why Snape didn't give him a birthday present but he didn't care.

The boy sat in warm room munching on candy, if he stained his eyes he thought he could see the reflection of the moon off a dark lake. The still prayed to the moon but he no longer wondered about the four mischievous boys; the two he lived with were quite enough.

The Shrieking Shack was no longer the most haunted place in England; it was home.

 _Thank you for Reading_

 _Please Review_


End file.
